Straight Up |: July 2005 Archives

Sir Ian Blair, the head of London's Metropolitan Police, sounds like a well-read police chief. "Al Qaeda does not act like some classic Graham Greene cell. It has very loose affiliations ..." he told reporters, following the arrest of four suspects, two seen below, in the failed July 21 bombings. I'm not sure which classic cell he was thinking of in which of Greene's books -- the successful terrorist bombers in "The Quiet American" obviously come to mind -- but I'm thinking of the one in "The Honorary Consul" because 1) it was tightly controlled, 2) it involved a major screw-up, and 3) bombing was not the mission.

Photo from Daily Mail, via Zuma Press

In "The Honorary Consul" a handful of Paraguayan terrorists slips into northern Argentina to kidnap the British ambassador during his visit to a sleepy provincial town. The mission -- on orders from El Tigre, a nasty nearly mythological figure who remains hidden in the Paraguayan jungle -- is to hold the ambassador hostage and exchange him for several political prisoners. But the terrorists kidnap the wrong man. Their screw-up results in a much worse tragedy all around than if the operation had been a success. Big contrast there. Not incidentally -- and no surprise coming from Graham Greene -- it is the cell's rigid ideology that compounds the failure and magnifies the tragedy.

Lies, evasions, memory lapses, and prevarications are characteristics shared by the top U.S. Army brass and our Dear Leader's choices for the government's highest civilian posts. The evidence is overwhelming, and it's no coincidence -- not when it comes to the war in Iraq, torture, the regime's foreign policy, and the nation's highest court.

From the lead editorial in this morning's Washington Post:

In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller [left, former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison, who was later dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib] denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. ... The [latest] court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress.

The State Department admitted yesterday that U.N. nominee John Bolton "failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa." He didn't prevaricate, or anything like that. Bolton just "did not recall being interviewed," a department spokesman said.

Similarly, when it became evident that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, left, was listed on the steering committee of the Federalist Society in Washington, regime officials "continued to insist that Roberts has no recollection of ever being a full-fledged member of the conservative legal group."

Was he lying? Stonewalling? Or just doing what comes naturally to a right-wing generation of triumphalist American leaders willing to put personal and political ambition -- so-called patriotism -- before honesty?

Of all the theories now circulating on the Web about the strange memory lapse of our Dear Leader's choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, this one strikes me as the most ridiculous:

JOHN ROBERTS' LOST WEEKEND

-- Leon Freilich

Democracy Now! has a terrific interview about John Roberts Jr. with Alfred Ross, head of the Institute for Democratic Studies. It was Ross who publicized the document showing the Supreme Court nominee's deep involvement with the Federalist Society as a member of its Steering Committee. Watch the video. Ross cuts to the heart of the issue about a guy with a steel-trap mind who suddenly can't recall whether he was, in fact, a dues-paying member of the society.

The important question is not whether he paid dues as a member or not. The question really at stake here is where does Roberts and his Federalist Society cronies plan to steer our ship of state. If one looks at the history of the Federalist Society, which was established at the inspiration of Robert Bork in the early 1980s, their entire trajectory has been to move our judicial system in an extremely radically right-wing direction.

And about that peculiar memory lapse:

Well, we can't yet do an MRI scan of his brain to see whether there is a memory cell there or not. But it would be very difficult, indeed, for him to deny his association with the organization. How does he get to be listed as a member of the Steering Committee? I suppose the Senate Judiciary Committee could inquire and ask for whatever correspondence existed. But again the important point here is not this memory lapse, which is strange given his reputation as having one of the more spectacular memories in the legal community in Washington, D.C., but again the growth of this organization within the Bush Administration and the implementation of its views.

Ross's alarm at the nominee's rightward ho! mindset is borne out in this morning's Washington Post. In a report headlined "Documents Show Roberts Influence In Reagan Era," it says he was "a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates" at the time, when he was a special assistant to Atty. Gen. William French Smith, and "presented a defense of bills in Congress that would have stripped the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over abortion, busing and school prayer cases."

According to the documents, the Post reports, Roberts also "argued for a narrow interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law that bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs; and he even counseled his boss on how to tell the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow that the administration was cutting off federal funding for the Atlanta center that bears his name," by conning her with false diplomatic sweet-talk.

Now for the kicker: "In the rare instances revealed in the documents in which Roberts disagreed with his superiors on the proper legal course to take on major social issues of the day, [Roberts] advocated a more conservative tack."

When you have a staff of thousands, you think you can relax. You believe in the wisdom of crowds. Well, if the many are smarter than the few, how come the thousands who nailed this somehow missed this? Best explanation? They wanted to spread reliable facts, not far-fetched entertainment. Remind me to beat some sense into them.

Coming attractions: The theme of the Federalist Society's 2005 National Lawyers Convention will be -- ta-dah! -- Originalism. (Our staff of thousands nailed it.)

"Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has repeatedly said that he has no memory of belonging to the Federalist Society, but his name appears in the influential, conservative legal organization's 1997-1998 leadership directory." So says The Washington Post, also noting: "In conservative circles, membership in or association with the society has become a badge of ideological and political reliability."

The society keeps the identities of its members secret (or rather, confidential, the society's preferred term), though it does sell ties and an official pin, right, for anyone who wants to profess membership. And let's not forget, "membership in the sense of paying dues was not required as a condition of inclusion in a listing of the society's leadership," says a top Federalist Society exec who believes he may have recruited Roberts. But he wouldn't say "whether Roberts had ever paid dues."

The Post story notes further:

Roberts has burnished his legal image carefully. When news organizations have reported his membership in the society, he or others speaking on his behalf have sought corrections. Last week, the White House told news organizations that had reported his membership in the group that he had no memory of belonging. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Associated Press printed corrections.

If you or I burnished our images as carefully -- for instance, by omitting membership in the National Rifle Association from a résumé submitted for a temp job in the Brady Campaign -- that would disqualify us on sight. But Roberts is only applying for a lifetime job on the Supreme Court, so the White House figures it's OK. Beside, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are Federalist Society members. Why make a big deal out of one more?

The New York Times apparently decided to answer Jess Bravin's Page One piece in The Wall Street Journal with a news story by David Kirkpatrick. This morning -- Saturday -- buried low on page A9 deep within the print edition (as you'd expect from miffed or embarrassed editors playing catch-up), The Times points to the groundwork now being laid by Democrats to challenge the nomination of Judge John Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, "in part by seeking to shift the focus from volatile issues like abortion to the broader subjects of personal privacy and government power."

Kirkpatrick quotes Sen. Richard Durbin as telling reporters on Friday: "Be careful that you don't translate this entire process into a referendum on Roe v. Wade." Durbin expects Roberts to discuss "the constitutional principles underlying" the right to abortion in his confirmation hearing, Kirkpatrick writes, "specifically the right to privacy," which, the Illinois Democrat also noted, had established "the far less controversial right to buy contraceptives."

It's a sure bet Durbin read Bravin's front-pager on Thursday or, at the very least, this passage in it: " ... the Supreme Court has in recent decades concluded that Americans have 'privacy rights,' even though the document doesn't explicitly say so. The court derived from those rights the Roe decision on abortion, as well as other rulings ending government restrictions on contraception and, more recently, homosexual sodomy." Durbin didn't mention homosexual sodomy, of course. You wouldn't expect him to, given the public he's trying to persuade. Just as you wouldn't expect The Times to front-page Kirkpatrick's report, given that The Journal got there first.

Try to find a discussion of "originalism" in the massive, admiring profile of John Roberts Jr., headlined "Court Nominee's Life Is Rooted in Faith and Respect for Law," which took a swarm of New York Times reporters to put together (11 in all). You won't find the issue mentioned anywhere, not even the word. The profile circles and circles, quoting the usual Ivy League sources about his three "P"s -- politics, personality and pragmatism -- but never quite lands.

We do learn that Roberts, left, "played Peppermint Patty" in his boarding school's production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" and, during a 1980 presidential election party many years later, he put a toy elephant on top of the TV while his roommate put a toy donkey on it.

Now have a look at the Page One story in the Wall Street Journal, "In Re Judge Roberts: Question Of 'Originalism' Looms Large," which appeared the same day and took one reporter (Jess Bravin) to write.

Tell me which is more informative about the stakes in Roberts's nomination -- legally, historically, and in real-world impact -- and what his appointment to the Supreme Court would mean. I'd say Bravin's piece wins hands down.

"In the noisy clash between activists on the left and right, the debate over the Supreme Court centers around bumper-sticker issues like abortion and the environment," he writes.

But there is a deeper and more complex argument that has been raging for years among legal scholars that the Roberts nomination now brings to center stage: whether constitutional provisions should be interpreted in light of "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," as the late Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in a 1958 opinion on punishing military deserters.

Under the living-Constitution banner, the Supreme Court has in recent decades concluded that Americans have "privacy rights," even though the document doesn't explicitly say so. The court derived from those rights the Roe decision on abortion, as well as other rulings ending government restrictions on contraception and, more recently, homosexual sodomy. The Warren Court and its followers used evolving interpretations to limit libel suits by public figures and curb execution of juveniles and the mentally retarded.

Those decisions triggered a backlash among conservatives. Four decades ago, Richard Nixon gave voice to their frustration, pledging to remake the high court with "strict constructionists." His Republican successors echoed that vow, sometimes succeeding in placing justices who have loyally followed that rule -- such as Justices Scalia and Thomas -- but sometimes failing, as with Mr. Reagan's appointment of Justice O'Connor or the first President Bush's choice of David Souter. Some conservatives have had great hope that the younger Mr. Bush would amplify the voice of originalism on the Supreme Court.

Diehard conservatives will be cheered to read that for Ed Meese, President Reagan's attorney general, who "helped popularize originalism," Roberts is (in Bravin's words) "the perfect pick."

"Everything he has done has been consistent with" originalism, says Mr. Meese, who worked with Judge Roberts in the Reagan White House. "The president [George W. Bush] is convinced that he is a constitutionalist in the same way that Scalia and Thomas are," Mr. Meese adds.

Liberals may be cheered, if that's possible, to read: "Unlike Justice Scalia -- and some of the other candidates the White House considered as replacements for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- Judge Roberts is not a leader of the movement known as originalism." They will be less cheered by the fact that, while not a "doctrinaire originalist," "Judge Roberts has spent much of his professional life working around advocates of originalism, and he is skilled at deploying [originalist] arguments ..."

Bravin cites a 1999 interview on National Public Radio, in which "Judge Roberts suggested that originalism was his starting point. Looking at an issue 'the way it was in 1789 is not a bad [approach] when you're talking about construing the Constitution,' he said."

What's wrong with originalism? Bravin writes further:

That comment prompted questions at [Roberts's] 2003 confirmation hearing for the appeals court. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, noted that "the Constitution in 1789 did not have the Bill of Rights," which was adopted two years later and that other compromises struck in the 18th century allowed slavery and "limited state power to make or enforce laws to deny equal protection to people. So the originalist's concept can't be an exact one, can it?"

If it's any consolation:

Judge Roberts took pains to separate himself from a rigid approach and suggested that all judges were originalists to some extent. "I think we are all literal textualists when it comes to a provision in the Constitution that says it takes a two-thirds vote to do something," Judge Roberts said.

"On the other hand, there are certain areas where literalism along those lines obviously doesn't work," he said. "I think different approaches are appropriate in different types of constitutional provisions." He cited the broadly worded Fourth Amendment as an area where "the text is only going to get you so far."

In addition to the bumper-sticker issues, Bravin's article reminds us:

The court's next term is already loaded with disputes that touch on core rights. One case concerns the First Amendment rights of public employees; another, whether states have immunity from lawsuits. A third involves the right of colleges to exclude military recruiters while receiving federal aid. Yet another case on the docket involves a central Warren Court precedent derided by originalists: the 1966 opinion that created the famous Miranda warnings for criminal suspects.

The Journal is keeping the story online for the next few days. After that it goes into archive with the toll booth. So read the whole story before it disappears from the free world.

He's been making the rounds trying to sell his Social Security Reform Proposal. On one of his stops a woman in the audience said: "I don't really understand." She asked: "How is it the new plan is going to fix the problem?" This was his verbatim response:

Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Will somebody please wake me when it's over?

"Just 25% of Americans say the White House is fully cooperating with the federal investigation into the leak of [Valerie Plame] Wilson's identity, The Wall Street Journal reports, according to a new ABC News poll. That's "down from about half when the investigation began nearly two years ago. Moreover, 75% said [Karl] Rove should lose his job if he leaked classified information." Naturally King Georgie Boy has renegged on earlier declarations that he'd fire anyone involved in the leak.

Bear in mind, this report by the Los Angeles Times: "Regardless of Rove's legal liability, a description of his role [to prosecutors] runs contrary to earlier White House statements" that he and Cheney Boy's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson." Also:

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat."

Meantime, The New York Times replied this morning to Greg Palast's argument about Judy Miller's refusal to reveal the sources who leaked to her. And finally, if you haven't read Frank Rich's take on all this, do so now. He begins: "Well, of course, Karl Rove did it." And concludes: "Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation." In between he offers a more beguiling analysis than anyone else's. If his prediction turns out to be right, Rich can chalk it up to his familiarity with the minor Shakespearean characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in "Hamlet," not to mention Tom Stoppard's play, during his many years as a drama critic.

Postscript: Leon Freilich cites Title 50, Chapter 15, Subchapter IV, Section 421 of the U.S. code on "Protection Of Identities Of Certain United States Undercover Intelligence Officers, Agents, Informants, And Sources." Skipping the legal technicalities, his commentary boils down to this:

KING KARL

The law's the law,
By Bush and by Jove!
But there are exceptions
For royals like Rove.

Politics set to music: "I can't wait till 2008," a vaudeville cartoon comedy cabaret act. It stars Hillary Clinton, with Bill, Kerry, Al, Jimmy, Georgie, Dickie, Nancy and "pussy-whipped" Osama in supporting roles, and Rudy, Chelsea and Michael Moore in walk-ons. Produced by Michael Hodges, unfortunately a conservative Republican who likes "pointing and laughing at liberals daily." Just click, watch and listen. You won't be disappointed.

If dance companies lack support in this country, as everyone agrees, you'd never have known it from the Pilobolus performances earlier this week at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan. Fans not only packed the 472-seat house, they broke into tumultuous shouts on Tuesday night for the troupe's 1980 classic, "Day Two" (choreographed by Moses Pendleton to a soundtrack by Brian Eno and the Talking Heads), and offered loud applause on Thurday night for "Megawatt > Full Strength," a 2005 creation, which might be welcomed 25 years from now as another classic.

The two dances could not be more different from each other, although both possess the indelible Pilobolus hallmarks of gymnastic strength, playful humor, unimaginable energy and, above all, the sense that nothing human is alien to this troupe, no matter how strange. While the electrically charged "Megawatt > Full Strength" (choreographed by Jonathan Wolken to the music of Primus, Radiohead and Squarepusher) is the more ambitious of the two works -- at roughly 70 minutes, it is presented as a full program without intermission -- it does not have the sublime grace or emotional impact of the frankly erotic "Day Two," above, which capped the first program. But the insane convulsions of "Megawatt" do leave you captivated, though exhausted and somewhat numbed by the total concentration drawn from you.

Another fanciful new piece created this year, "Aquatica," made its New York debut on the first program. Set to atmospheric music by Marcelo Zarvos, it had the physical dynamics and thematic grandeur of a major work but, for this viewer at least, waxed sentimental with a vague story about a girl listening to the ocean from the shore, which diminished its resonance.

What kept "Aquatica" afloat (no pun intended) was Michael Tracy's exotic choreography, which seemed to express the primal life of sea plants and other undersea creatures, and the bravura skill of the troupe's two women and four men, who performed with complete belief. Needless to say, the stunning discipline and versatility for which Pilobolus is known was also on exhibit, as it was in the other offerings of the first program: the dramatic "Warm Heart" (2004), the circus-like "Brass Ring" (2002) and a Buster Keatonish, comic solo from "The Empty Suitor" (1980), all three also choreographed by Tracy.

In fact, no single choreographer alone created any of these dances. All were made "in collaboration with" the dancers themselves. This is generally true of the creative process in dance, though it's sometimes unacknowledged. But shared creativity (and credit) is especially true for Pilobolus, which was founded in 1971 by a group of Dartmouth undergraduates on the principle of "a collaborative choreographic process and a unique weight-sharing approach to partnering." This, it rightly claims, enabled the group to invent a "non-traditional but powerful new set of skills" for making dances.

Purists used to criticize Pilobolus as an acrobatic team, dismissing its dance vocabulary as an exercise in gymnastics. Some critics still dismiss it, but the debate over the company's authenticity ended long ago (or should have). Pendleton, who was among the Pilobolus founders, went on to create Momix. Tracy along with Wolken, both also Pilobolus founders, remain as artistic directors.

The dancers have changed, of course. But I can't imagine the original troupe being any better individually or as a group than the current one: Renée Jaworski, Jenny Mendez, Mark Fucik, Matt Kent, Manelich Minniefee, Andrew Herro and Jun Kuribayashi.

• Pilobolus will present a third program titled "Suspended," featuring "BUGonia" (above, right) in its New York premiere, beginning Monday. The troupe will also repeat the first two programs during the rest of it four-week engagement at the Joyce Theater (175 8th Ave. at 19th Street) through Aug. 6. All tickets are $42, at the box office, online, or by phone: 212-242-0800.

A newly released military investigation shows that interrogation tactics used on prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, right, were employed months earlier on detainees at Guantanamo, according to today's Washington Post.

The report's findings are the strongest indication yet that the abusive practices seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers.

So fucking what if the techniques -- which included hooding, shackling, stripping, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, and threatening dogs -- were approved by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for use at Guantanamo in 2002? So fucking what if the Post reports that the investigation "supports the idea that soldiers believed [these] were approved interrogation techniques for use on detainees" at Abu Ghraib?

The Army has refused to term the tactics torture, calling them "creative" and "aggressive" instead. It has also refused to prosecute or discipline Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded the Guantanamo prison at the time "and later helped set up U.S. operations at Abu Ghraib," even though "[w]ithin weeks of his departure from Abu Ghraib, military working dogs were being used in interrogations, and naked detainees were humiliated and abused by military police soldiers working the night shift."

We knew all that stuff before. We knew it before the election last November. We knew it, and the majority of the American electorate didn't fucking care. Why would it care now?

Mum's the word from this mumzer, a k a Robert Novak, right, who is fittingly dubbed Lord of the Journo-Flies for Chris Lehmann's bloated piece on the Plame investigation.

The real story is elsewhere: Kyle Gann, esteemed downtown composer and fellow AJ blogger, messages that he likes Greg Palast's take on Judy Miller, the New York Times reporter now sitting in jail to protect the identity of her confidential source. Gann's right. Palast, marksman that he is, hit the bull's-eye as usual.

Here's what he said this time:

The only thing more evil, small-minded and treasonous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source." ...

[T]he weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this information), this was an official using his official info to commit a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a real whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's mythological premise for war in Iraq.

Palast explains further:

Part of [Miller's] oddball defense is that The Times never ran the story about Wilson's wife. They get no points for that. The Times should have run the story with the headline: BUSH OPERATIVE COMMITS FELONY TO PUNISH WHISTLEBLOWER. The lead paragraph should have been, "Today, Mr. K--- R--- [or other slime ball as appropriate] attempted to plant sensitive intelligence information on The New York Times, a felony offense, in an attempt to harm former Ambassador Joseph Wilson who challenged the President's claim regarding Iraq's nuclear program."

As to the idea that Miller stands for the principle of freedom of the press by going to jail to protect her source, he reasons:

Every rule has an exception. My mama always told me to compliment the chef at dinner. But that doesn't apply when the chef pees in your soup. Likewise, there's an exception to the rule of source protection. When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my-name" to cover a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation propagandist -- and Miller and The Times have been all too willing to play Izvestia to Bush's Kremlinesque prevarications. ...

And thus we have Miller sucking on the steaming sewage pipe of White House lies about Iraq and spitting it out in the pages of The Times as "investigative reporting," for which The Times has apologized. Likewise, we had the embarrassment of Bob Woodward's special access to the Oval Office after the September 11 attacks when Woodward reported the exclusive news that the President was a flawless commander in chief in the war on terror -- [See "Bush at War"] -- for which Woodward has yet to apologize.

While reporting from the Potemkin village of decision-making set up for him at the White House, Woodward missed the real story that, in the words of the Downing Street memo, our leaders were losing track of Osama while they spent their time "fixing the intelligence" on Iraq.

It's hard to argue with any of that.

Meantime, on the slight chance that the special prosecutor investigating the Plame case actually gets his man, Leon Freilich penned this verse:

MAD KING GEORGE

If Karl Rove's ass
Winds up in the cooler,
Will we need a brain
Transplant for our ruler?

Is Judith Miller grandstanding? When she went to jail rather than testify about her confidential sources in the Plame case, did she go as a matter of principle or because she thought it was a good career move? Only Judy knows. But put the question that way -- some of Miller's critics have -- and you get into Ethel Merman territory, i.e.: David Ehrenstein's riff on "Rose's Turn," from "Gypsy."

David E. adjusts the lyrics (with apologies to Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim) and calls the number "Judy's Turn." It's clever, and funny, and my staff of thousands thinks it's apt. But you have to hear Merman sing the original and know where David E. is coming from to fully appreciate the riff.

Now comes Chris Schneider, a Straight Up reader, putting more "Gypsy" material to Miller-ite purposes. This time the lyrics have been adjusted from "You Gotta Get a Gimmick," which was performed in the original Broadway show by Faith Dane. Schneider writes, "Since David's reaction to it was very positive, I thought I'd take a chance and pass the results on to you."

So here tiz, untitled (but copyrighted):

You can pull all the stops out
Till Bill Goldman pops out,
Make with the mouth till you're blue ...
But Ya Gotta Look Like Redford
If you wanna get your due.

Put your trust in Pakula
And pray you look spec-tac-ulah
(Not like that head in Nichols' "Heartburn");
Just radiate like Redford
And p'raps they'll call it "Judy's Turn."

Possible interlude for Nora and Delia Ephron:

Judy,
You'd best take our tip,
You're not built like Cher,
You haven't Streep's zip.
Judy,
The press corps won't flip.
We'll warn you, we're fair ...
Just button your lip.

© by Chris Schneider

Schneider calls himself a "writer on the performing arts" -- "read: theater critic whose job was pulled out from under him" -- currently working as "a dramaturge and all-purpose know-it-all" for a theater company in San Diego. He's also "a bass-baritone, a jazz enthusiast, and someone unashamed (almost) of his love of musical comedy." He claims Cole Porter was "one of the three fairies surrounding [his] cradle, 'Sleeping Beauty'-style." His "Higher Power" is listed under the name "Sarah Vaughan." And he was born on the same day as Gloria Grahame in the same town as Dennis Cooper -- "both of whom have been role models for safe 'n' sane behavior ever since."

Just for the record: I part company with my staff of thousands. I think Miller is doing something right by going to jail. Even if it is a good career move, even if she secretly were to regard her incarceration as penance for the propagandized reporting she did on WMD in Iraq, which the regime used to justify the Iraq invasion, and even if the sources she's protecting are, ironically, high government officials who are liars serving a rotten U.S. regime, her willingness to go to jail still stands for the principle of a free press. And yet ... and yet ... the Miller tale keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

NPR has settled the union case brought against it in the David D'Arcy affair. At the 11th hour, before a scheduled July 7 arbitration hearing, NPR agreed to compensate staff editor Tom Cole, a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, whose pay had been docked as a disciplinary measure without due process, in what AFTRA had charged was a violation of the union contract. NPR execs also agreed that AFTRA would have a say in future disciplinary actions against editorial staffers. No action was taken to reverse D'Arcy's firing. He is a freelancer and not a union member, and thus had no standing in the case. "I'm not even roadkill," he says. My bet, however, is that NPR hasn't heard the last of him. Network execs have said nasty things about D'Arcy, which may be seen as damaging to his reputation, and which they may yet be forced to regret.

So now we know: It was Karl Rove, left, who outed Valerie Plame to Time reporter Matthew Cooper in the White House effort to discredit and personally threaten former ambassador Joe Wilson after he exposed as bogus the U.S. claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Rove didn't use her name; he merely called her "Wilson's wife," according to an e-mail Cooper wrote his boss.

We're supposed to believe Rove didn't know she was a CIA operative who worked on WMD issues even though he told Cooper, in another bogus claim, that she "authorized the trip" Wilson made to Niger to investigate the attempted purchase. And we're supposed to believe that by not using her name Rove didn't actually out her. Anyone who believes either supposition wins the booby prize.

As long as we're on the subject of Al Qaeda, here's what the British don John Gray, my preferred philosopher, says on the first page of one of his handy little books: "No cliché is more stupefying than that which describes Al Qaeda as a throwback to medieval times." He goes on to point out that its "closest precursors are the revolutionary anarchists of late-nineteenth-century Europe." Not a view widely held by the common run of experts. Nor is this:

The modern myth is that science enables humanity to take charge of its destiny; but "humanity" itself is a myth, a dusty remmant of religious faith. In truth there are only humans, using the growing knowledge given them by science to pursue conflicting ends.

This of course includes Al Qaeda whose suicide warriors are a rebuke to the belief governing Western societies "that modernity is a single condition, everywhere the same and always benign." Or that: "As societies become more modern, so they become more alike." Or that: "Being modern means realising our values -- the values of the Enlightenment, as we like to think of them.

If Gray (whom I've written about before) offers any consolation, it is this:

The new world envisioned by Al Qaeda is no different from the fantasies projected by Marx and Bakunin, by Lenin and Mao, and by the neo-liberal evangelists who so recently announced the end of history. Like these modern western movements, Al Qaeda will run aground on abiding human needs.

But that hardly means there will be an end to terrorism. "Once Al Qaeda has disappeared, other types of terror -- very likely not animated by radical Islam, possibly not overtly religious -- will surely follow," Gray writes on the concluding page of his handy little book. "The advance of knowledge does not portend any age of reason. It merely adds another twist to human folly."

Postscript: The term "neo-liberal" may seem confusing to Americans. It is more or less equivalent European usage for our "neo-conservative." Bill Osborne has provided a fuller explanation of what it means in Marketplace of Ideas:

Some of neo-liberalism’s most important tenets are cutting public expenditure for social services such as health insurance, education and cultural programs. This is consistent with its other policies, such as the deregulation of the market to allow the free flow of capital and limit restrictions caused by issues such as environmentalism and job safety; privatization of state-owned enterprises such as schools, parks, toll highways, hospitals, utilities, and water supplies; and the replacement of traditional concepts such as "the public good" or "community" with values emphasizing "individual responsibility." (We thus see that in its technical economic meanings, neo-liberalism differs from the common American political usage of the term "liberal." Neo-liberalism refers instead to the historical meanings of market-liberalism as freed from government intervention or involvement.

Es claro?

The Council on Foreign Relations has posted a primer called Terrorism: Questons & Answers. In the wake of the London bombings and the claim of responsibility, still not authenticated, it's worth reading if only as a reminder of some essentials, i.e.: "What is al-Qaeda?" (The words are Arabic for "the base"), "What are al-Qaeda's origins?" (the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), and "Is al-Qaeda connected to other terrorist organizations?" (Nine are listed.).

The CFR primer also asks and answers the following questions in generally helpful (but sometimes dopey) terms:

• What major attacks has al-Qaeda been responsible for?
• How is al-Qaeda connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?
• How is al-Qaeda funded?
• How does al-Qaeda operate in the United States?
• Are there still al-Qaeda operatives at large in the United States?
• Before September 11, had al-Qaeda attacked U.S. interests?
• Is al-Qaeda the same as the Taliban?
• Does al-Qaeda engage in forms of violence other than terrorism?
• Does al-Qaeda have a charter or manifesto?
• Does al-Qaeda have an operations manual?
• How does al-Qaeda find new members?
• Other than Afghanistan, which countries have had ties with al-Qaeda?
• Did Iraq have ties with al-Qaeda?
• Does al-Qaeda have biological or chemical weapons?
• Does al-Qaeda have nuclear or radiological weapons?
• Can al-Qaeda outlive bin Laden?

Although regarded as liberal, the Council on Foreign Affairs is a mainstream think tank that defines itself as a "nonpartisan center for scholars" which produces and disseminates ideas on foreign policy to dues-paying members (individual and corporate), and to policymakers, journalists and others. Key words here are "mainstream" and "corporate," which pretty much contradicts "nonpartisan" (and, depending on your point of view, even "liberal"). So keep that in mind.

Also in the wake of the London bombings, it's worth reading an article prepared beforehand by Robert S. Leiken, "Europe's Angry Muslims," which the council has posted from the current issue of Foreign Affairs, the journal it publishes. Leiken is Director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center in Washington, D.C., and a non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. So keep that in mind, too.

Web connection down. Staff of thousands helpless.

The G-8 summit began today in Scotland as thousands of demonstrators demanded an end to the Iraq war, debt relief for Africa, and action on global warming. So what's on the G-8 agenda? Brief yourself.

These are the key questions:

• Why did Blair choose to focus on climate change?
• What is the Bush administration's position on the issue?
• Is progress on this issue likely at the summit?
• What is the debate over aid to Africa?
• What is the Bush approach?
• Are the two issues of Africa aid and climate change intertwined?
• Which other issues are under discussion at the summit?

On debt relief for Africa, these are the key questions:

• What are the current plans?
• What exactly does Blair's plan call for?
• How would the financing mechanism (known as the International Finance Facility) work?
• What are the U.S. objections to the IFF?
• What has been the Bush administration's approach to aid (known as the Millenium Challenge Account)?
• What do critics say about the Millennium Challenge?
• What are some other common criticisms of U.S. aid policy?
• What's the official U.S. policy on debt relief?
• Which other ideas to finance debt relief are being floated?

The latest report is that the goals for relieving poverty and combatting global warming have already been scaled back. As to ending the Iraq war, fat chance.

If Karl Rove did not out Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent, which his lawyer contends, why won't he clarify what he told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about her, if anything? Now that his lawyer has admitted Rover Boy was one of Cooper's confidential sources, what is he still hiding? That he's an arrogant S.O.B., like all the rest in King Georgie Boy's regime? Everybody knows that already.

The Prairie Home Companion's man from Lake Wobegone met the famous poet a couple of years ago for the first time, after admiring him for four decades. They sat and talked in a cafe in San Francisco's North Beach, and Keillor wrote: "Here is an 83-year-old artist whose eyes are bright and who, while furious at the Administration, rides his bicycle through the city he loves and enjoys its courtesies and graces and has fallen down at the sight of beautiful women." Ferlinghetti was 86 in March. He still rides his bicycle and loves the beauty of women, still writes, paints more than ever, and still opposes King Georgie Boy's regime, while continuing as the proprietor-publisher of City Lights Books with co-publisher Nancy Peters. Long may he wave.

Postscript: Nancy writes: "Keillor also did a wonderful SF Arts & Lectures event, an hour & a half interview with Lawrence, at the Herbst Theater the year after his news story. Lawrence is, in fact, slowing down some these days -- but he still rides that bicycle and does more than some people half his age." Since that interview is not online, here's a recent conversation from the San Francisco Reader, worth reading for Ferlinghetti's typically outspoken assessment of "Skyscraper America." His latest book? "Americus I," published last year.

To keep Independence Day from becoming a more empty patriotic ritual than usual, let's celebrate the hearty dissenter Milton Glaser, designer of many famous logos and symbols such as I♥NY.

Here he is interviewed on PBS's "NOW" about the The Design of Dissent Exhibit at the School of Visual Arts in New York and his and Mirko Ilic's new book, "The Design of Dissent," which explores socially and politically driven graphics.

If Ken Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or his amateur PBS monitors, care to read all of Glaser and "NOW" host David Brancaccio's remarks, there's a full transcript of the interview online. It doesn't cost a dime, much less the $14,000 it cost taxpayers for Tomlinson's snoops, and it's professional, too.

The interview included illustrations of especially powerful images of dissent from the exhibit, which closed Saturday. Among them was a 2004 poster, below, by Nenad Cizl and Toni Tomasek, called "Got Oil?" Needless to say, it echoes the "Got Milk?" ad.

Some highlights of Glaser's remarks:

DISSENT PROTECTS DEMOCRACY

I think it's a rather simple-minded idea that if you examine government, those that have the least dissent are those that are most totalitarian. That is, in fact, the manifestation of dissent that defines democracy, 'cuz it means that there are oppositions to power that are freely expressed and that minority opinion is also considered to be worthwhile. Generally speaking, dissent comes out of a sense of fairness that something is wrong. Power is being used unfairly, and there has to be some manifestation or complaint about it.

DISSENT VS. PROPAGANDA

I think there is a difference, which is to say in dissent the dissenters have, it seems to me, the obligation of referring to a central truth and an idea of fairness and a complaint about power.

In propaganda, you have no such obligation. You don't have to tell the truth. You certainly are rarely complaining about power. You're simply expressing ideas that you want to enter into the system in order to persuade people to do something. ...

You wouldn't talk about a government dissenting from anything fundamentally, because they are the power. So there is this inevitable dialectic relationship between power and dissent. And those of us who value dissent see that as a manifestation of democratic health.

... You really see that this is not so much a manifestation of left and right. Or radical and conservative. ... [M]ore than anything else -- what it is, is a response to power.

And that no matter what the source of the power -- whether it's right-wing power or left-wing power, or any other [power], or religious power -- it behaves in the same way. It always attempts to suppress, to subvert, to marginalize opposition. And, for all of us who care about democracy it creates the opportunity to complain. And to try to redress what we perceive as an unequal fight.

STATE OF DISSENT IN AMERICA

The thing that makes you most crazy [is], the idea of this passive acceptance of an authority. We thought we weren't that kind of people. Something else has happened that links to that which is a transformation of a perception I think we had at the end of the war which was that ends did not justify means.

After Nuremberg, that idea became very clear philosophically, right? You cannot do anything you wish, because you have a good end in mind. The way that you accomplish that is very significant, and you can't simply do it because you want to. Well, that idea's vanished. What happened to that idea? It was a very powerful idea, if you remember the end of the war, and after the Nuremberg trials.

Now, there isn't any sense that ends don't justify means. Everything that the government does that is oppressive, the withdrawal of citizens' rights or torture or whatever is justified by the threat. And that idea that we simply you know don't do things because they're immoral has vanished. And I'm always astonished at how short a time it took to transform this country. ...

Once you have a media that is not interested in making trouble, it is also not interested in following the line of dissent. And I think that's one of the complex issues that occur in a media-dominated democracy which is that the choice of what is articulated and raised, the consciousness, finally depends on the courage of the people in charge. And I don't think they're very courageous these days.

I've been watching the global feed of Live 8, which is being streamed online in an AOL webcast. At the moment the global feed is showing Dido onstage in London, where the scene looks too dull to watch. But you can also switch to Rome, where the camera crew is really flying -- not a stationary shot to be seen -- and it looks great under a bright blue sky with fleecy white clouds. Green Day is performing onstage in Berlin, left, connecting with an energetic crowd that's having fun. In Paris, the crowd looks great but whatever is happening onstage is a mystery. So far it sounds like a shaggy tune-up. The Toronto and Philadelphia concerts have yet to begin.

Postscript: Hello!! Just caught a replay of Paul McCartney onstage in London, right, singing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with an intro by Bono. Not too shabby, huh? The Philly concert has begun with "one million people on the street," Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof announced from the London concert, and three billion watching worldwide.

As world leaders gather for the international summit in Scotland next week, our war prez is suddenly getting too much good p.r. from friendly headlines here and here in The New York Times, as well as a very friendly editorial this morning for his newly announced anti-malaria initiative for Africa ($1.2 billion in aid over five years).

Not to mention the worldwide attention tied to the celebrity-studded Live 8 concerts organized by Bob Geldof, left, and taking place this weekend -- in London, Philadelphia, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Rome, Johannesburg, etc. -- or the Bono juggernaut, which puts a rosier glow on the regime's Africa programs than anyone except the regime itself.

But not everybody is taken in by the regime's seeming generosity. The Washington Post for one. Have a look at its story this morning about the inflated claims for the anti-HIV/AIDS program in Africa. Have a look at this editorial about his anti-malaria initiative. The editorial essentially reiterates the gist of what Jeffrey Sachs said on June 14 at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the strongest, most voluble proponent of development aid for the third world, especially in Africa.

Pictures can do more than words to make the case at times -- have a look at Finbarr O'reilly's Reuters photo of a starving child in southern Nigeria, below -- but now that the council has finally posted the transcript, here are some of Sachs's most telling points:

$40 BILLION IN DEBT RELIEF

The trick is to separate the headlines from the ground reality. ... [A]rithmetic is the most important thing in this, the arithmetic of life and death, and the per capita ... flows that are involved. So here's a headline: Forgiving $40 billion of debt -- what does it mean?

[T]he actual cash flow involved, is about $1.5 billion a year over these 18 countries. They will not get $1.5 billion of net relief even from this because the way that it's going to work is that these countries will stop paying, and the U.S. and other creditors will pay the cash flow to the World Bank and to the other asset holders to keep those balance sheets whole. But the U.S. has said that when it pays the Bank, in lieu of these countries paying the Bank, it's going to take it out of existing aid budgets.

So what's the real issue here? Is there any real resource gained from this at all? Hard to know, but it's small, because even if it were $1.5 billion, all of the estimates are for Africa that we need about $25 billion a year; after all, there are 750 million people in Africa exposed to some of the worst disease pandemics in the world. So this would be tiny even if it were resources actually flowing, and it's not clear it is net resources. It's a very small part of the overall necessary aid.

THE MYTH ABOUT U.S. AID

The biggest myth in our country is how much aid we give and how much has gone down the drain. This is what I confront every day, many times a day from hate mail, to questions, and so forth. Let me just run through, if I could, what we actually do for Africa.

The U.S. aid to Africa is $3 billion this year. That $3 billion is roughly divided into three parts: The first is emergency food shipments. Of the billion or so in emergency food shipments, half of that, roughly $500 million, is just transport costs. So the commodities are maybe half a billion dollars. That's not development assistance, that's emergency relief. The second billion is the AIDS program, now standing at about $1 billion. That, on the whole, is a good thing. I would call it a real program. It's providing commodities; it's providing relief. It started late and it's too small, but it's there. The third billion is everything else we do for child survival, maternal survival, family planning, roads, power, water and sanitation, malaria. ... Most of that, approaching 80 percent, is actually American consultant salaries. There's almost no delivery of commodities, for example. There's essentially zero financing to help a country build a school or build a clinic or dig a well. [Italics added.]

When you get down to it, the actual financing we provide to help Africans invest in their future is well under $1 per African per year. Then, the politicians say -- as George Bush did yesterday -- we give so much money and it's misused; we won't let that happen. The fact is we put in almost no funding, and it accomplishes almost nothing. And then we bemoan the waste. I don't know how to break through that misunderstanding. That's what I've been trying to do for many years, but it's very, very powerful in this country.

THE MILLENIUM CHALLENGE

[T]hat's another interesting thing. The Millennium Challenge Corporation was announced on March 14, 2002. I remember the speech. They also asked Bono to sit next to the president as he spoke at the Inter-American Development Bank to announce this. Then we went to Monterrey, Mexico, where there was the International Conference on Financing for Development. George Bush came. The U.N. ambassador at the time, John Negroponte, came over and whispered in my ear, "Well, you're getting what you asked for," which is always a dangerous thing to hear! [Laughter] And they announced $10 billion in the next three years of well-targeted aid to well-governed countries.

Let me tell you now, we're three years, four months since that date. Not one penny has been disbursed. One program for Africa has been signed--that's for Madagascar. It's a four-year, $110 million program. It was signed in April. As far as I know, not a single penny has actually gone yet. The first year is supposed to be $27 million. It's a program that, in my view, is poorly conceived anyway, but that's--I don't even want to quibble on that. But it is, at best, that we'll have in the first four years $27 million going to Africa. This is what passes for our help.

BONO AND THE U.S. REGIME

Bono's belief has been that being nice is going to be the way to bring everyone along. And everything that's been announced has been championed. We get good headlines for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. We say it's wonderful. The Bush administration claims it's tripled aid to Africa, which, aside from the fact that you can multiply three times an insignificant number and still get an insignificant number, it's also not even true in terms of the numbers.

But this is an administration that people don't like to take on head-on. You get slammed when you do it. They work very closely with the White House, Bono and his group, because they think that that's what's going to bring -- that's what's going to bring everything along. I mean, Bono's not only well-meaning, he's heartfelt and earnest, and incredibly hardworking, and I admire him enormously for it. But my job is to know the arithmetic, and we're not solving the problems. We're just talking about them.

AMERICAN OPINION

[T]here's so much confusion that it's very hard to break through, because -- as you probably know, the actual views in America -- when people are asked to estimate what we give, they overestimate by a factor of about 30. And when you look at what the president says, like he said yesterday and the day before, and when Tony Blair came--it is absolutely deep misinformation, so there's no way to get out--no way to get out of this, in terms of public--it's almost impossible to get out of it in terms of basic public understanding.

And the readiness of people to hear this message is low. Americans do not like to hear this, and when I said it last night on television, I got a slew of e-mail [saying], "That can't be right, you don't know what you're talking about, stop picking on the president, and stop picking on us, and why should we throw money down the drain for Africans?" -- and many things like that.

So this is really deep, and it's -- it is coming to the truth right now, I think. The moment of truth, I should say. When Tony Blair came and George Bush said no, this was the most decisive moment of many years of this effort, because he basically said, "We're not joining this effort."

MALARIA AND U.S. POLICY

Malaria will kill 3 million people this year. It's utterly preventable. It's 100 percent treatable. It will kill 3 million children. It's really something to see a child dying of malaria. I've seen a lot of them in the last year dying of malaria. It's the most useless, ridiculous thing in the world, because a pill in the right time would save them, and because every child that I saw dying of malaria had not had the benefit of a $7 bed net.

The United States has not seen fit to give away bed nets. It's seen fit to advertise the sale of bed nets in what's called social marketing. ...[W]e spend all our malaria budget on advertising in Africa rather than giving away bed nets. Our total spending on malaria is $90 million a year. In other words, 25 cents per American. This is not commensurate with a disease which will kill 3 million children, nor is it right to spend the $90 million with $60 million of it being in advertising as opposed to delivery of services.

And then I've been in the White House -- on e-mail with the White House every day in the last week in the lead-up to the summit. They're sticking with this social marketing because that's the only sustainable approach, they tell me. It's got to be done through the market. The only sustainable approach. I say to them, "But isn't it a mark on your sustainability that 3 million Africans will die this year? Is that very sustainable?" "Well, yeah; but sorry, Professor Sachs, we're not going to get Africans dependent on our aid," is the answer. So the fact of the matter is that public health specialists understand very well how this massive disease burden could be brought under control, but we're not doing it.

NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE

It would be possible for $1 billion to lay a fiber-optic cable throughout Africa. One billion dollars is the best estimate. If we cared to do it, we could do it. Why don't Africans do this? Because Africans don't have enough to eat, much less to invest the surplus. The average income in sub-Saharan Africa right now is about $350 a year. But that's not even income; that's imputed value of food grown and eaten. It's just non-food subsistence. So there is no surplus there.

The clinics that I go to do not have running water. They don't have a complete surgical kit. The mothers that make it to the clinic, in breech birth or in need of a C-section, or in hemorrhage, they die there because there aren't the facilities. These are not hard things to change. Once in a while, private efforts get together to try to do something, like Rotary International to control polio. They have a great success. Smallpox, by the way, which was successfully eradicated, as you know -- the United States voted against it, the effort, in the 1960s. Said it could never happen. It turned out it was some tens of millions of dollars to actually do this, once we decided to do it. African river blindness has [been] gotten under control. [President] Jimmy Carter has been trudging through the poorest places in the world, controlling African Guinea-worm with remarkable success at a very low budget.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, NEW PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD BANK

[W]hat I like about Paul Wolfowitz is that he understands what a real budget is, because he was dealing with a $500 billion budget [as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense]. Now he's being asked to fix the world on a $7 billion budget, and he knows that he's operating at the level of a failed weapons system now. [Laughter]

Anyone who remembers San Francisco's hippie "summer of love" may appreciate this tribute to Chet Helms, left, who died last week. It includes Paul Krassner's story about a news article that claimed Helms had died when he was still very much alive. "So Chet decided to produce his own combination wake and resurrection," Krassner writes.

I never met Chet Helms, but I well recall the Human Be-In he helped organize in Golden Gate Park way back in 1967, and listening to Janis Joplin, whom he launched in 1966 with Big Brother and the Holding (the band she fronted and he managed), and all the other San Francisco bands he presented at the Avalon and the Fillmore in its early days (Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service among them). If you were there, there's no way you wouldn't remember those days.

Glad to see AJ colleague Terry Teachout has changed his mind about Wil Haygood's "In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr." Though Terry still believes it's sloppily written (revised upward to "not beautifully written"), he now says "it tells a fascinating story in a very effective way, so much so that my memory of the book was more enthusiastic than my review." Maybe Terry will come around on the writing one day. He's halfway there. My staff of thousands hopes so. It reminds me that my review, first published in the Chicago Sun-Times, was a flat-out rave. The prose may not have the mandarin elegance Terry prefers, but it's plenty beautiful.